THEATER PREVIEW: OCC launches theater season

There are a number of things you expect from Orange Coast College’s theater season, which gets underway tonight with a brief weekend production of Jean Paul Sartre’s “No Exit.”

One is the college’s Repertory Theater Company, which is staging “No Exit,” will devote a slot or two during the season to the one-act plays from one particular playwright. This will occur twice during the 2007-08 schedule.

The first such tribute arrives Sept. 28 for a single weekend when the Rep mounts “Romantic Fools,” a collection of short comedies by Rich Orloff. The second is ticketed for three days in February and will be titled the “Don Nigro Play Festival.” All of the plays will be presented in the Drama Lab Studio, the smaller of the two Drama Lab theater venues.

OCC’s first major production of the new slate arrives Oct. 11 with the unveiling of two plays — Kitty Felde’s new drama, “The Man With No Shadow” and Doug Rand’s comedy “The Auditioners.” These one-acts will be offered for three weekends, through Oct. 28 in the larger Drama Lab Theater.

Another brief, one-weekend segment will surface Nov. 9 and 10 when the Rep’s comedy team stages its annual improv, sketch and stand-up laugh-fest. This one is dubbed “Comedy Pirates.”

The “Ten or Less Festival” is another element that’s always present in the OCC repertoire. This program, featuring plays 10 minutes long or shorter, will take place Nov. 14 through 18 in the Studio Theater.

And it wouldn’t be the holiday season at OCC without its “Old-Fashioned Christmas Melodrama and Ice Cream Social,” this year scheduled for Dec. 7 through 16. The menu includes vaudeville acts, carols, a children’s joke contest and a broadly played melodrama. Look for a special visitor, bearing gifts, following the performance.

Circle Feb. 9, because that’s the only night OCC will present “Theater Nouveau,” a program of monologues and short plays. The Don Nigro festival is scheduled for Feb. 22 through 24.

Things turn serious from March 13 through 22 in the Drama Lab when Academy Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Horton Foote’s “1918” unfolds. It’s a drama set in Harrison, Texas, evoking small-town America during a time of world war and pestilence (the worldwide influenza pandemic).

With St. Patrick’s Day will come “Irish Comedy Night,” March 17 only. It’s another evening of sketch, improv and stand-up comedy with the Emerald Isle well represented.

Each season, an advanced member of the Rep chooses and directs a full-length play in the Studio Theater. The next one is not yet selected, but will run between April 11 and 13.

The OCC schedule usually includes a work from Shakespeare, and this season will be no different. “Much Ado About Nothing” will hit the stage from May 1 through 18 in the Drama Lab.

Prospective audiences may obtain further information about the OCC theater season by contacting the college at (714) 432-5640.